


The Power of Distruction (Let it Fall)

by ambivalentlangst



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Exhaustion, Gen, Intrusive Thoughts, Langst, Lotor Lives, Minor whump, Post Season Six, Unstable Lotor, dealing with the rift, irresponsible use of caffeine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 14:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14978696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambivalentlangst/pseuds/ambivalentlangst
Summary: Lance can't sleep, can't forget, and can't leave Lotor's side. The rift taunts and enthralls him, and he can't stand it. Lotor is the best warning Lance has of why he can't go back. He wishes it was enough.





	The Power of Distruction (Let it Fall)

**Author's Note:**

> Y’all,,, season six,, has me messed UP. My coping method of choice was writing this thing, wherein Lance is sympathetic, scared, and tired and Lotor does not die but is still not alright. Title inspired by the song [Porcelain](https://youtu.be/DfTUs-s_XkI) by Skott
> 
> * * *
> 
> tw: blood, canon established violence, and non-graphic murderous intent
> 
> * * *

Lance had never felt anything like the seething mass of power rising from within him. It tantalized his mind with promises of the universe laid out before Voltron, brought low with blows they could justify from faith in what they once were, and that faith alone. There was nothing like the _possibility_ of it all, and it fattened his veins with visions of glory and gluttony, Voltron grown into a god with the fact that they could do anything, anything at all and there was nothing to stop it.

Allura’s voice was at first—and he could almost never admit it later aside from when a cold shower hid the way he trembled—a nuisance. Lance was a part of something greater, so much more than one person could ever, should ever be. Who did she think she was, sundering his potential from reaching the universe helpless to do anything but receive it?

Her voice came again, and Lance bit back a growl at how it extracted him from the thrall of the quintessence surging around him.

“ _What happened to Zarkon—”_

Lance gave pause. He didn’t like Zarkon and didn’t like anything associated with him. He didn’t want to be like Zarkon. He shook his head in Red, her borderline rabid roar dulling to background noise in his ears. Voltron was thriving in the rift, but he didn’t want that forever. It was enough, he realized with sudden clarity. Red didn’t quite understand, but he reached out and soothed her with a hand that rubbed her shoulders, or at least that was what Lance could best describe the feeling as. She couldn’t maintain this, as much as she wanted to. He opened his ears, fighting back against the pull of the rift to listen to what Allura was saying.

“What about Lotor?”

The question rang in Lance’s ears while the others argued amongst themselves. He thought back to the nonsense he himself had screamed in the comms, drunk on the thrill of strength none of them had ever deemed possible. Part of Lance, most of him, hated Lotor viciously.

Romelle was terrified of him and his plots, he manipulated Allura mercilessly, and countless Alteans had perished for his schemes. Lance hated everything he’d done, that he’d probably stolen Shiro away and that most of all, he’d hurt his friends, his family. Lance remembered hating Allura when her voice cut into his consciousness.

As much as Voltron saved, they’d been granted prophecies—now never to pass—of the greatness they could have with the power of the rift. They’d all succumbed for a short while, and when Lance thought of Lotor, he realized that had he been without the bonds he’d forged with his teammates, he would’ve fallen prey just the same way.

“I think Allura’s right. We have to at least try to get him out,” he admitted after a moment. Hunk shouted into the comms.

“We don’t have time!” Lotor’s cackling reached through the abyss of white and energy, volatile and manic.

“I don’t need _saving_ , Voltron!” Lance thought that was a pretty good indication that he did.

“We were barely able to stop!” he reminded them. “If we were alone, we would’ve destroyed ourselves too.” Keith growled, but Pidge chimed in quickly.

“Whatever we do, we have to do it now! Voltron can’t hold on much longer.” Keith sounded agitated, but Lance appeared to have won him over.

“Break for Lotor, now! Destroy the cockpit and grab him. We can’t risk bringing what he made back with us!” Lotor roared in indignance, but Voltron moved fast with the light of the chasm engulfing them. Red’s mouth was what closed around him in the end. Lance could only think of the ability at his beck and call that had almost swallowed him whole, even when the castle blew and Lotor was left in a pod to be dealt with on Earth.

Lance slept fitfully that night.

* * *

Lotor didn’t like Earth prison much better than his trappings on the castle, it seemed as he spat and clawed in Lance’s face for the umpteenth time that day.

“The thanks I get for saving your life,” Lance told him dryly. Lotor was busy fighting the bars of his cage.

“This is primitive. I had it all—Voltron had it all, why did you give it up, you fools?” Lance sighed, feeling a flicker of fear not at Lotor, but the large part of him that had wanted to cast out Allura’s warnings and give himself over to the void. He sat in front of his cell, holding his ankles while he rocked back and forth. Those in his life had tried for years to stop his fidgeting, but Lance had too much energy to keep contained.

“Lotor, I get that you lose perspective after being alive for a couple centuries, but universe ending destruction isn’t always the answer.” Lotor glared at Lance balefully.

“You’ve never understood, paladin. You always hated me for working with Allura to reach her true potential.” Lance’s head snapped towards him, a bit of anger igniting within him.

“Oh, don’t act so high and mighty. I hate you for a lot of reasons, manipulating Allura is just the tip of the iceberg. For one, you don’t get brain freezes, and two, you had clone Shiro divide the team for the Kral Zera, which was shady all around. Plus, you make Keith twitch every time you stare at him because you figured out he’s part Galra. Really not cool, considering how much you’ve ‘given up’ to save Altean culture. Do I need to keep going?” Lotor grinned, flaunting the sharpness of his teeth. Lance went back and forth on whether he thought they’d come to a more exaggerated point in and since the final battle between them.

“You hate me, and yet you guard me so faithfully. Even when your halfbreed comes to try and make you leave your station in favor of an Earthen guard, you refuse. Clearly, your priorities are askew.” Lance snorted.

“You don’t have shit on Keith, dude. He’s been searching for things to do ever since we shot the castle to pieces along with the training deck, and I happen to be someone he can use to take his mind off things.” Lotor pounced on what he could, Lance found, and a simple rebuffing hardly stopped him.

“Why is it that you, my poor, hateful paladin, are always the one who takes the brunt of your teammates woes?” Lance’s face contorted in disgust, and he mimed gagging.

“First of all, I’m not your anything, so take notes. Second, I do it because I can, and it’s a lot easier for them to get back to saving the universe without the weight of their emotional baggage. They’re better at it than me, anyway.”

“You admit your incompetence? That you are nothing in the midst of the true glory of Voltron?” Lotor sounded like he really thought he’d brought something new to Lance’s attention, like he hadn’t spent night after night coming to the same conclusion and deciding that even if he was inferior, it didn’t change the fact that he’d do just about anything to see his family safe, blood or not.

“Yup, pretty much,” he replied easily, popping the first p. His fingers tapped on the ground and he ignored the fact that his butt was numb from sitting on it. “Doesn’t change the fact that for whatever dumb reason, I can fly a lion. That’s a talent in short supply, apparently. Believe me, the second I think there’s a candidate who can drag Pidge away from her computer and keep up with Hunk’s organization system, I’ll nominate ‘em for the position. Until then, I guess they need me. I need them too, so I’m hanging onto what I’ve got.” Lotor frowned, looking displeased by Lance’s easy, though self-deprecating, response. He made another jab, words spilling quickly, hatefully.

“You are the worst paladin, the most useless, and they’re all aware of it.” Lance smiled contrarily when the end of the statement twisted up a little, like a question rather than something determinedly meant to tear him down. He was wavering, finding out that his attacks were essentially harmless.

“You’re running out of ammo, Lotor. Give it a rest, will you? I’ve guzzled like six energy drinks for the past three days instead of sleeping, and I have a headache. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I suck. You just sit in your corner and try not to piss yourself when you get too angry. I don’t want to smell it.”

Lance let his head fall back against the wall and closed his eyes, though he didn’t let himself sleep. He could hear Lotor’s labored breathing for a few long seconds before he howled in rage and began attacking his cell again. Lance absently speculated about how he hadn’t broken a nail yet.

* * *

Lance wished he was surprised when nobody came to check on him after awhile, despite the fact that he never left Lotor for longer than it took to shower and get food. Every time he slept, or began to, bright white danced behind his closed eyelids. He couldn’t stand it. Lotor made a few sly comments about the sullen stains hanging under his eyes, to which Lance told him to fuck off, sometimes more politely and sometimes not.

“It’s not like I give a shit about what you think, just a friendly reminder.” Lotor’s response was irate and hoarse, betraying an inkling of the unadulterated rage Lance could see bubbling just below his occasionally cool veneer. He had done a poor job maintaining it since coming out of his pod, and Lance took the brunt of his deranged diatribes with a weary nod.

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten. You’ve cast me aside just as easily as your teammates, the only difference being you clean up your messes instead of leaving them to be obliterated.” Lance had mentioned in an interjection in Lotor’s ravings that had he not spoken up, they likely would’ve left him in the rift to be destroyed.

“Oh, piss off. You can’t get mad at them for abandoning you. You brutally murdered thousands of Alteans who’d you’d been grooming for years to blindly trust you, and made us have to blow the castle ship up. Our home away from home, and Coran, more than any of us, deserved better than that.” Lotor hissed in anger, or made a sound that Lance could best approximate as a hiss.

“It was the only way. If you, any of you had _listened_ to me for one second—” Lance cut him off, face stony.

“Shut up, Lotor. I’m tired.” Lotor grinned, wide and displaying far too many glistening fangs for comfort.

“And yet you can’t allow yourself to sleep.”

The alien had always had a gift for cutting ruthlessly to the heart of the matter. Lance wouldn’t admit that Lotor had gotten to him, and took another sip of his Red Bull.

* * *

Lotor was now trying bargaining with him. Lance observed him blankly while Lotor’s silver tongue wound together promises of glory and admiration, limitless possibility available if they could just move past what he’d done—he’d even admit he’d been wrong, what a guy—and make a better future. 

Throughout his propositions, rather than listening, Lance sluggishly mused about what exactly might have led to the slip that brought Lotor here, making feeble attempts at persuasion with the use of his normally infallible charm. It was clear to Lance, after spending so many fatiguing hours memorizing the rise and fall of Lotor’s chest, the stresses in his tormented shouts, and the very way his hair shifted when he grappled with the limits of his confines, that there was something undeniably unhinged to the prince. Lance saw it, saw the great, unknown variable irreversibly integrated into the core of what made Lotor himself.

“What do you say, paladin?” Lotor asked. Lance lifted his eyes from where they’d been intently examining a scratch on the concrete floor for the past ten minutes.

“What?” Lotor frowned.

“Pardon me?”

“I said ‘what.’ W-H-A-T, what. As in, I’ve been tuning you out because I’ve had a headache for the better part of the past week, so you’re going to have to be less of an asshole to get my attention.” Lotor’s knuckles had gone white from clenching the bars of his cell. Lance wondered throughout his time on guard duty what kind of compound they were, because any normal metal would’ve caved instantly when put up against Altean, not to mention Galran, strength. He didn’t want to get up and ask though, so it remained a mystery.

“You are the most unpleasant creature I have ever had the misfortune of encountering.” Lance’s returning gaze was nonplussed.

“You’re up there yourself, pal.” He began rattling off names of people he could remember hating most. “My piano teacher, Iverson, Zarkon. Except, I guess I never really met him exactly.” Lotor’s eyes were suddenly very bright and Lance watched with horrified fascination as his teeth lengthened. The rift really was some creepy shit.

“Don’t say I am _anything_ like my father,” he seethed. Lance blinked a few long times, his eyelids feeling heavier every time they closed.

He knew very vividly what it felt like to be compared to someone that brought you pain. Lance would die for Keith, for any of his teammates, but there was hurt mingled in with the same fierce protection he felt for all of his family members.

He’d told him everything, _everything_ and he’d gone and left and Lance was on his own all over again. His eyes flitted to the side, chin coming to rest on his palm. The weight of it felt heavier than usual.

“Okay,” he agreed after a moment. He pointedly ignored the confusion clear on Lotor’s face.

* * *

The night before Lance finally broke, he’d gotten the first real visit from a friend since Keith at the beginning of the week. Shiro had walked in, pearly hair shining like a beacon. Lotor all but snarled, and Lance looked up wearily.

“Hey,” he told him, voice an octave or two lower than normal. He had been sitting for hours, trying to make himself get up to get another source of caffeine. Shiro waved lightly with his organic hand, a mass of tech hanging from where his prosthetic had been before. Pidge and Hunk were hard at work, apparently. Shiro peered down at him, casting a wary glance Lotor’s way before focusing on Lance again.

“Hey,” he responded in turn, as if testing the waters to their situation. Lance shifted back, putting more weight onto his palms while Shiro spoke. “Keith tells me you’ve been here all week. Are you okay? Can we talk outside of here?” His eyes went to Lotor, who smiled icily. Lance glanced back at their prisoner. He’d wrestled with that term a lot in the long hours he’d been with Lotor and won, deciding that yeah, Lotor could use some imprisonment. The word was an apt term for his situation, and Lance was too exhausted to care that maybe it wasn’t the most morally correct one. He struggled to his feet and nodded, chin nearly brushing his clavicle.

“Yeah, whatever.” He pointed to Lotor, who glared sharply, all but baring his teeth at Shiro. Lance had gotten good at avoiding thinking about the kind of tenuous constant between them, that though neither particularly liked the other, there was a rhythm to their snark and probing, scathing altercations. They needed pattern like a drowning man needed air. If they were the only things providing it, so be it. “Don’t be too much of a dick while I’m gone. I’m just outside, and I’ll be back.” Lotor rolled his eyes.

“As you wish, my infuriating captor.” Lance flipped him off behind Shiro’s back as they walked out.

In the hall outside Lotor’s cell, Shiro fixed Lance with a look that would have made a less sleep deprived man sweat. Lance stared back for a second before he realized Shiro wasn’t really supposed to know that he felt like the world was a stop-motion film, and little things like talking didn’t take a thousand different shoves in the right direction. Lance smiled, easy and wide.

“It’s good to see you up and around.” Shiro frowned. Lance thought that was probably not good.

“Lance, do you want to explain why all the soldiers are complaining that all the caffeine in the break room near here has mysteriously disappeared?” Lance scratched his cheek and shrugged.

“Couldn’t tell you,” he lied languidly, stretching and tapping his foot like he might normally.

If he faked it for long enough, maybe he could forget the power he still felt calling to him from across the universe. In the past few weeks, he’d gotten pretty screwed over, and he’d screwed over other people in turn. He’d died, been left to his own devices with everyone pairing up into their own teams, and then had nearly killed Shiro too. There was a lot of things Lance wasn’t coping with, and guarding Lotor was kind of a selfish source of pleasure because if he was with him, he didn’t have to try and heal and work past it all. Shiro watched Lance more intently.

“Lance, I know a lot has been happening, but you can’t run yourself into the ground like this. I know it’s hard with the Garrison is still trying to figure out how to reintroduce us—we all miss our families. Still, I think you should take a break from staying with Lotor.” Shiro shuddered. “Even if he isn’t a threat anymore, he can’t be good for you.” Lance shrugged.

“I’m fine, he’s just spiteful company. I’d feel bad if any of the Garrison soldiers had to deal with the royal pain in the ass.” Lance didn’t know when Earthen soldiers had come to mean so little to him, but they hadn’t seen stars and blood and furred monsters that rushed at him and gave no reprieve. He stretched his grin impossibly wider, waving his hands animatedly. “Besides, it’s not like I have anything else to do! I know you and Allura are busy, Keith doesn’t even like me all that much and I’m sure he’s back to training with whatever the Garrison’s got, and Hunk and Pidge are doing all their weird nerd stuff, so it’s all a-okay with me. Just doing my part to pitch in and all that.” Shiro didn’t look convinced.

“Lance,” he tried again. “I know I’ve been,” he paused for a moment, “out of commission for awhile, but I still know you. You’re not fine. It’s okay not to be fine, but at least let us help you. Tell me what’s going on, or somebody else. Haven’t you been friends with Hunk forever? Can’t you talk to him?” Lance’s face twisted up for a second before he shook his head and waved Shiro off flippantly.

“Nah, don’t wanna’ bother him. He’s got stuff to do. So do I, as a matter of fact. And don’t start on you being ‘out of commission’,” he told him, a bitterness to his voice that Lance hadn’t expected and didn’t want Shiro to hear. “That’s my fault.” Shiro immediately tried to protest. Lance cut him off. 

“It is, Shiro. I should’ve done better, figured it out. You could’ve died, almost did, and it would’ve been all my fault. Besides,” Lance’s breath caught in his throat, thinking of the brightness of the quintessence, the raw dynamism coursing through his veins and lighting him up with energy enough to destroy the universe, “you wouldn’t get it.” A hand settled on Lance’s shoulder, and he reluctantly spun to face Shiro from where he’d been turning to go back to Lotor.

“Lance, let me help you. I don’t know if I’ve seen it exactly, but I can try. Please let me at least do that.” Lance’s eyes narrowed. His thoughts had grown steadily darker with memories of the devastatingly enchanting light keeping him from sleep.

“No,” he growled, and only vaguely noted how he didn’t sound dissimilar to Lotor in his current state. “No, Shiro. When I say you wouldn’t get it, I mean it. I could’ve destroyed galaxies, time and space and everything in between. I almost did, and I was barely brought back from that. You’ve never experienced anything like it, _believe me.”_ Lance’s eyes were losing their verve, breaths becoming harder to take. “I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry for being so useless, but you can’t help. Leave me alone, okay? Please.” Lance hated the way his voice cracked and his eyes brimmed with tears, but there was nothing he could do. Lance looked his hero in the eyes and saw that he seemed—and oh how it cut like nothing Lance had ever felt before—scared.

“Lance—” he tried one more time. Lance shook his head, opening the door back to Lotor’s screaming and clawing, raving and rampaging.

“I said leave me alone.”

* * *

Lance had chugged two cups of coffee and another two energy drinks following the talk with Shiro. He currently sat with his heart beating a mile a minute while his knee knocked on the ground so fast it almost blurred.

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath, pressing the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. He could feel Lotor’s satisfaction emanating like a physical force from his confines.

“Why is it that you can’t sleep, paladin?” he teased. He was as keen and quick-witted as always, even if that wit no longer brought him to consistently logical conclusions. Lotor was smart, Lance knew that and thought he was doing a pretty good job deflecting all his knowledge and taunts with pure spite and ridiculousness. Lotor had been skilled at standing up to that before, but now it was easier to get under his skin. Lance might’ve felt bad about exploiting the fact if he didn’t still hate him so damn much.

“Because you’re actually a pretty smart dude, and I’m sure given the opportunity you’d bust out of there and shove a sword through my neck. Can’t take my chances,” he rebuffed him lowly. Lotor was definitely smirking now; Lance could feel the burn of it on the back of his neck.

“As you say, paladin, but for someone who so clearly dislikes me, you’re awfully persistent in playing keeper. You could have somebody else, but you don’t leave my side. There’s a reason, Lance.” Lance shuddered. He hated when most Galra said his name, and now was no exception.

“Don’t get familiar,” he snapped shortly. “We’re not friends, and I don’t want to be.” He finally looked to Lotor, who was sitting closer than usual to the front of his cell.

“You don’t deny what I say,” he all but purred. “You could’ve left me and it would have been no trouble at all. The power was at your fingertips, all of it, and none of you ever knew how to _use_ it.” He was getting angry again, and while before Lance had been able to brush him off with a sardonic smile, now his exhaustion rumpled his features with a flinch. He should’ve known better. Lotor’s eyes danced with barbarous electricity. He had finally found where to push. Lance knew as well as him that he was his only hope, his only card left to play.

“Oh, have I hit a nerve? Perhaps I underestimated you. Did you realize what you could do? The lives you could’ve ended in an instant, the realities subject to your whim?” Lance’s expression was growing dangerous.

“Cut it out, Lotor,” he growled through gritted teeth. The prince, broken and left to rebuild himself in a concrete square while one of his greatest enemies monitored him constantly, laughed.

“You _did_. What a revelation. So, you gazed upon visions of Voltron, of you as a god, and turned away. _Why?”_ It wasn’t hard for Lance to realize that the frustration laden in Lotor’s voice was earnest, as well as the bewilderment. Lance’s eyes had gone wide as he stared at the live testament of what the quintessence could do, how it warped the charming prince Lance knew to the maddened man Lance called a monster to reassure himself. His lips trembled. It could’ve been him, it almost was, and he still wasn’t sure that in some abstruse part of him he didn’t have his own Lotor. He didn’t answer, and Lotor all but shoved his face through the bars keeping him back.

“You pity me, Lance, but I need _nothing_ from you, and certainly not that. I will be left by everyone who ever was meant to stay by my side and I will survive.” He panted, eyes crazed in their luster before continuing his manic tirade. Lance tuned him out as something in his chest eased the longer Lotor carried on against him. He sat in front of him, treating him as an equal for once in the days he’d refused to truly be separated from his side. He hadn’t sleep recently enough to think about the implications of that. Lotor seemed both threatened and perplexed at that, and showed his teeth in a motion Lance chalked up to instincts. Lance sighed.

“I don’t pity you. You scare me, yeah, but it’s not you that does, exactly. You just—” 

He ran a hand through his hair, collecting his thoughts as his response petered out. He began again. He couldn’t contain the fear within him any longer.

“Back in the rift, I got it. I heard you screaming and trying so hard to destroy us and I wanted to fight. I wanted to tear you and whatever the hell it was you made to pieces and scatter the dust left across the universe as a fucking trophy for everyone to see.” Lance gripped the same bars as Lotor, hands placing themselves under his without making contact with his skin. He needed the coolness of the metal to ground him. What he’d experienced in the rift was some sort of creature within him, writhing and ripping him apart from the inside out.

“I saw what I could do and I wanted it more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. Without Allura, I would’ve let it destroy me.” Lance couldn’t pause long enough to process what Lotor’s reaction might be, the beast inside him rearing its ugly head, unstoppable with every admission that gushed from Lance’s lips.

“And then she stopped me, and I could see you still attacking, and I realized how close I was to that. You had nobody to stop you, to bring you back from the edge. That could’ve been me, and that’s so fucking _terrifying_ I don’t know what to do. Every time I close my eyes I see the white and feel the power and part of me screams that I need it to walk and talk and even breathe. It’s gone but I’m not, even though I’m trying, really trying, doing my best to outrun it. At first, that’s why I thought I decided to stay here all the time, aside from that there’s nowhere else for me, to use you as some kind of sad martyr who became like you are to remind me why I can’t want the feeling all that quintessence gave me. At first, that explanation worked and now it’s just _not_ so I have to come to terms with the fact that I still want to destroy the universe or something. _I don’t know._

“But now I’m looking at you after you’ve been yelling at me for like a week, and all I can think is that it didn’t have to be this way, like you said, and that if you’d had an Allura, things would be different. You wouldn’t be in this stupid cell, listening to me rant like an absolute idiot, and I know you’re awful but you have to have _someone.”_

Lance looked to Lotor, remembering all the times his team, who he loved and adored and knew never even meant to do him harm, had left him to his own devices. Those memories mingled with the fear at his own potential and made it so that he couldn’t bring himself to just abandon Lotor.

“I doubt I’m the right person because I’m hardly ever the best fit for anything, but I’m all you have. I know all the horrible things you’ve done—don’t start trying to justify them, you won’t make me change my mind, I know you’re not really sorry—and it makes me sick. Don’t get me wrong, I know you’ve fucked up bad and you don’t get a pass, but you’ve never had anybody to stop you. You were alone before and I know it’s too little too late, but I have to try. If I can do that, I think it’d keep me from joining you.”

Lotor said nothing at first, indigo irises the only anchor in a vast, tumultuous sea of yellow. He just stared at Lance, who still held onto the bars with him. Then, he reached forward through the cage to rip Lance’s skin open from temple to jaw in one quick slash of his claws.

Lance stumbled back with a shout, clutching his cheek in a hand already turned crimson. He couldn’t see very well through one eye, but whether that was because Lotor had actually gotten to it or there was just too much blood blocking the view, he was unsure. Lance was so tired, he had been for so long, and the cut was agonizing. It would inarguably need stitches, and it would certainly scar. Somehow, that didn’t bother Lance. He looked back to Lotor, whose claws bore his blood on them still.

“How dare you,” Lotor hissed. “How dare you assume that I need you, that I am weak and couldn’t have fought the rift off if I wanted. How dare you presume to put yourself in my life after making me a prisoner on your wretched home planet. I need _nothing!_ I am emperor of the Galra empire and I need nothing but Voltron to be destroyed so I can rise up again.” Lance took in the sight of Lotor before him while the words rung in his head for what felt the millionth time.

_It could’ve been me._

Lance lifted his bloody hand to wave, watching Lotor grapple with what he’d just told him of his intentions, his alien eyes looking every which way like if he scoured the room well enough, he’d find an answer to Lance’s company.

“I’m gonna’ go get this cleaned up, and I’m gonna’ go ahead and sleep too if that’s fine with you,” he told him. Lotor’s lip curled in a snarl. Lance wondered what it must be like, to be so hated your entire life that at any sign of confusion an automatic instinct was to attack. The thought hurt.

“Try not to be too rough on the rookie, whoever they send in. If it makes you feel better, you can tell them to clear away all my empty containers. Wiggle your claws and they’ll probably do it. They’re not used to that sort of thing.” Lotor appeared befuddled but darkly smug. As Lance’s hand went on the handle of the door—no easy things like automatic doors for prisoners of war, apparently—Lotor’s bitterly whispered words reached his ears.

“And even after promising to stay, here you go.” Lance laughed and waved him off.

“Oh please, you can’t get rid of me that easily. I just need a break, and you did kinda slice my face open. I’m pretty sure you hit bone, but whatever. I’m pretty enough to make up for it. I’ll be back, believe me.” Lance glanced back at Lotor, seeing the pent up emotion he was still trying to figure out how to release, likely after spending god only knows how long holding it back.

“I don’t want you.” Lance nodded.

“And I don’t want you either. We’ve kinda been over this, but as much as I hate you and you disgust me, I need you. You have a lot of shit on me now. Mostly though, I just keep thinking that if you had been told from the beginning that someone was with you—I don’t know. Maybe we could’ve been friends, or at least we’d still be allies.” Lance’s head dropped, but he didn’t have to wonder why he was shooting himself in the foot by choosing to do this. He opened the door, taking the first step away, and yet closer together. Lance wasn’t stupid enough to think there was any fixing Lotor—if people were things that could be fixed—but for better or for worse he was going to try and keep him from cracking any further.

“I’m tired, Lotor. I’m sorry about that, and I’m sorry you’ve never gotten to rest either, but I’m working on it. I’ll see you later.”

The door was shut before Lance could hear his reply.  



End file.
